People I respect tell me how much they like, "Death of a Salesman". And they tell me how affected they were by it. So I wonder why do I have a niggling feeling about it.

Is it that it is about an ordinary American rather than Kings and Queens? Or is it that it seems to feed a Left Wing view of the world? Or is it that it is a tragedy?

Ah yes, I am getting somewhere now. I think that may be the key to my niggling feeling - it is in fact a tragedy. And a tragedy set in a safe, first-world country that is spectacularly rich and powerful.

Yes, I think that what niggles me. The essence of an Ancient Greek tragedy is that tragedy is unavoidable. In fact it is the very perceptions, thoughts and actions of the protagonist that create the tragedy.

For instance Oedipus did not know it was his mother he slept with any more than Narcissus knew that the reflection in the pool was he. So there was nothing either of them could do to avoid the tragedy.

But choice is the liet motif of a free market and the Salesman is its avatar.

So I am moving towards thinking that, "Death of a Salesman", is a pastiche - that is, an imitation of a tragedy.

Also an Ancient Greek tragedy produced catharsis, that is, the purging of emotion, while, "Death of a Salesman", leaves us full of emotion.

So I think my niggling feeing is telling me I am looking at a phoney tragedy.

In fact I might even go further and say, "Death of a Salesman", is agitprop.

The play is more like an advertisement for a particular point of view.

In fact at its deepest emotional level, it is hopeful.

So it is not a tragedy any more than it is tragic to be a salesman in a free-market economy.

"We grow up thinking that´╗┐ beliefs are something to be proud of, but they're really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are´╗┐ easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because "strength of belief" is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of´╗┐ a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you've made it a part of your ego."